A Future Devoid of Carrots
by mumblytron
Summary: Lucina's always having to save things. Like the world, or her nervous brother, or the very existence of the taguel themselves. But her first concern is preventing the rise of Grima, at any cost - even extinction. That is, if everyone can stop petting her ears first... (Awakening AU)
1. Yarne Has Bad Depth Perception

Yarne was going to die.

He thought that a lot, but he was certain of it this time. He had ten – no, eleven – Risen on his fluffy tail. He wasn't sure how long he could outrun them, didn't know how long he could stay on his own four paws, even if his pursuers were literal sacks of flesh and scariness.

Stupid Risen. At least they never had to worry about safeguarding an entire species. There were literally hundreds of them. Yarne wished there were hundreds of him. Then he wouldn't have to be so nervous all the time.

Something exploded in front of him and he yelped, quickly throwing his weight to the left and bolting off down another alleyway. He'd never gotten used to having buildings blow up in his face. He wasn't used to seeing his home city overrun and on fire, either, but he didn't have time to ponder that. He was trying to prevent the extinction of an entire species.

Of course, that burden usually wasn't _only _on him, but since he had no _earthly _idea where his sister was, he had to assume that she had died horribly and he was the last hope for his race. That was his rule. Unless he could actually see another taguel at that very moment, he was almost definitely the last one. It had kept him from going extinct so far, and if it worked, there was no reason to fix it.

He didn't realize until too late that his sudden turn had led him down a dead end. He scrabbled to a stop, his paws gaining little traction on the ash-coated cobblestones. His heart pounded in his chest too fast. He could feel his whiskers twitching.

He whirled to face the Risen approaching him down the alleyway, saw that the walls were sheer stone on either side, and gulped. No escape.

The Risen leader seemed in no hurry to reach him. It lumbered rather than walked, its head twitching back and forth like a grotesque clockwork bird's, and the axe in its hand had a wicked curve to it that just screamed "extinction". He'd faced hundreds of Risen, but this one somehow managed to be scarier than the rest of them. Then again, he'd thought that about the last one he'd fought. And the one before that...

Yarne clenched his claws into the ground, trying to find his courage. Eleven Risen wasn't so bad. Was it?

No, it wasn't. Eleven Risen was the _worst thing that had ever happened to him_.Except for Mom dying. And Dad dying. Maybe it was in a close third. Or fourth...

"D-don't come any closer," he warned, but his voice squeaked unconvincingly. "I've got claws!"

The Risen leader snarled, an animal sound that did not match its humanoid appearance, and when it moved, it was faster than Yarne had thought possible. The Risen's sheer speed always took him by surprise, but Yarne had a lot of practice reacting to surprises. The axe came down with a heavy _whoosh_, and Yarne was gone before it came anywhere near him.

He whirled, throwing his body weight around until his back was to the Risen, and kicked outwards with his hind legs. They connected with a satisfying _thump_, and the Risen stumbled back, grunting. Yarne's position was now exposed, but he had no intention to continue fighting. Instead, he used his opponent to boost himself, harnessing the force of his push to launch himself upwards, toward the roofs that closed the alley from everything around it. Yarne soared upwards, knocking the Risen down with his body weight, congratulating himself on his own brilliance. He reached out to land on the approaching ledge.

And missed it.

Yarne hit the side of the roof with his chest. For a horrifying moment, his front paws scrabbled against the tiles with nothing to grab, while his back paws kicked for the wall and found nothing but air. He slipped backwards, lost his grip on the surface entirely, and fell twenty feet to the cobblestones.

He landed on his back. All the air went from his lungs. For longer than he should have, he lay stunned, staring up at the sooty sky and wondering what had happened. It took him a long moment to realize he had lost his beaststone on impact, and he was lying on the ground in human form, unarmed and unaided.

Struggling for air, he flipped himself onto his hands and knees, feeling around in the dark for his weapon, knowing it couldn't have gone far. The Risen leader was climbing very slowly to its feet, and the deliberateness of its movements served only to make it more intimidating, not less. Its squad was still far away, at the other end of the alley, but they would arrive before long. Slow and steady. There was no reason to be concerned about a single, unarmed taguel, alone in an alleyway. Yarne wasn't even sure they could feel concern.

This really was the end, then. The Risen leader had reached him now, its scorching eyes lavender in the half-darkness. The burning building cast the Risen's silhouette in searing amber, and firelight glittered off the sharp edge of the weapon it raised above its head. Yarne didn't know whether to guard his face or try to get away, and his moment of indecision paralyzed him, leaving him at the mercy of the weapon as it came down.

Or... not?

Yarne didn't know why the Risen had stopped, didn't know why it was still standing dumbly in front of him with its weapon over its head, until the light in its eyes faded away. His eyes went to its abdomen, and the point of the glimmering blade which had been thrust through it, and he understood.

The sword was gone from the Risen's flesh, and it disintegrated, its weapon dropping to the ground beside the pile of dust it left behind. In its place stood his sister, her cape flowing in the drafts from the burning building, her face set in that same expression of intense seriousness that it had worn ever since this had all started. Her brows were pressed together, giving an impression of concentration that was only emphasized by the lines that marked the sides of her face. Her sapphire hair lay in disarray around her shoulders. Her ears were in disorder too, her right one lying over her left shoulder and the other turned inside out and sticking straight up at the base, like it always did when she ran too fast.

Lucina looked at him, her serious expression transforming to one of concern. She quickly extended a hand to him, her brows somehow managing to get even closer to one another. "Yarne. Are you all right?"

The taguel leapt to his feet without accepting help. "All right? All _right_, Lucina? I'm fine! What are you doing here? We can't have both of us die!" He waved his arms at her. "You're a taguel and the exalt! Well, technically. Before the world ended. What I'm saying is you can't die. You have to get out of here."

"Your life is every bit as important as mine, little brother, and don't you ever say it isn't again." Her face was so stern that Yarne was suddenly struck the impression that he had done something wrong.

"Right," he said. "Sorry."

"No need to apologize." She pressed a beaststone into his hand and gave a nod. "I'm here with you. We'll hold them off together."

"Could you just... boost me to a roof, instead? And I'll pull you up after me. I mean it's not like these guys are moving too quick, I'm sure we have plenty –"

An arrow clattered into the wall behind him, narrowly missing Yarne's head. He yelped and ducked, if ineffectually. Lucina whirled, and the way she spun Falchion reminded Yarne of their father, as though it were part of her body, an appendage she'd had for years.

Yarne's hand closed around the beaststone. He knew what that meant.

It meant they were going to fight. And it meant they were going to survive.

"What was it that Mom used to say in situations like this?" Yarne asked, trying to make himself less nervous by getting his sister to talk. Lucina's voice had always had the tendency to put him at ease.

His sister frowned. "Um. No hopping in the house?"

"No. Like when she was helping us train."

Lucina nodded as though she had remembered. "Stop hitting your brother so hard."

Yarne shook his head. "No, about why we train. We must win, or something. The taguel... are fighters?"

"The taguel must live," Lucina said, and the absurd position of her ears somehow only managed to make her words more encouraging to Yarne. She was his sister. She was the princess, and he was the prince, with the blood of the exalt running strong in their veins. And they were the last of their kind.

Yarne nodded.

"Yeah. The taguel must live."


	2. Grima Needs Deodorant

The house where the junior Shepherds had made their temporary base was small and run-down. It was missing parts of its roof, had no panes in its windows, and was located on a patch of earth so scorched and barren that not even the most talented of farmers could have coaxed life from it. But it was far enough from Ylisstol to not be under immediate threat from the Risen, while remaining close enough to the Outrealm Gate that it was a convenient gathering point.

When Owain saw them coming, he stood up so fast that he nearly cracked his head on a low-hanging roofbeam over the bench on which he sat.

"Hoi there," he said. "I was beginning to dread that that Yarne's valiant diversion had gone the way of the taguel." He blinked as he realized what he had just said. "Sorry."

"I'm glad you got out, Owain," Lucina said. "Did everyone else arrive okay?"

Gerome suddenly appeared in the window, leaning through the glassless frame. "The others are resting, but we're still missing Kjelle's group." His face became an even more intense frown. "I certainly hope Laurent was right about splitting up. Certainly they couldn't have killed us all, but I fear for the lives of our comrades."

Owain rolled his eyes. He placed his hand on the corner of his mouth, and in a stage whisper, said, "He still thinks we should have done the Awakening."

"I do," Gerome said. "You and Yarne both are of exalted blood, and the merits of time travel are untested, at best. We will not be able to change the timeline at all, nevermind for the better. Better to deal with our problems as they present themselves, rather than fleeing to unknowns."

"I'm all for fleeing," Yarne supplied.

Gerome sighed. "Yes. As always."

"If we are still missing Kjelle and the others, we have to go back for them," Lucina said. "Our parents are going to need all the help they can get."

"We cannot stay much longer," Gerome said. "I did a fly-over earlier. If we do not leave, we will be overrun."

"And if we leave, Cynthia, Kjelle, Noire, and Nah will be unable to find us," Lucina said. "Would you have us abandon them?"

Owain placed his hand on the pommel of his sword, and twitched his fingers sporadically. Yarne could never tell whether or not that mannerism was intentional. "Either we depart together, or not at all. A true warrior never retreats to where his vanguard cannot follow."

"A true hero knows his limits. A dead hero is even less capable of changing an immutable past than a living one." Gerome was addressing his words to Lucina – an annoying habit of his. He rarely spoke directly to anyone, seeming under the impression that if he didn't look anyone in the eye, it would hurt less if they died. But to Lucina he would speak directly, for reasons Yarne could never entirely decipher. It had nothing to do with her status as royalty, because Yarne was royalty too, and he could never get a straight answer out of the fellow. "If you are truly set on this fool's errand, we cannot risk our lives waiting for those who have already fallen."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Gerome," Kjelle's voice said. "We're no weaklings. We're only late because we'd never leave a friend behind."

The knight appeared from around the side of the house. Next to her was Nah, her face gritty with soot, and Cynthia, leading a pegasus whose wings were dragging with exhaustion. Noire was slung, unconscious, over the steed's back.

"Egad!" Owain exclaimed. "Is she—"

"Alive," Nah said. "Where's Brady?"

Summoned by the sound of his name, the priest came flying through the entrance to the hut. The door snapped open so fast that it struck Owain halfway through its swing.

"I'ma comin'," Brady said. He was half-dressed and his hair stuck up at all angles, indicating that he had just awoken from a deep slumber. Yarne stepped back to let him pass, not inclined to meet extinction at the trampling feet of an overexcited healer. As he did so, a whiff of something met his nose – something that sent a bolt of fear through his heart.

"Lucina," Yarne said. "Smell that?"

She looked at him with a furrowed brow, not understanding. She raised her face to the wind and breathed in through her nose. Her face dropped. "No," she said. "Oh gods, no."

Gerome looked at her, and even through his mask, Yarne could see his eyes narrow. "What is it?"

"The Risen are nearly upon us," she exclaimed. "We have to get to the gate."

Brady looked at her from where he was standing over Noire's unconscious form. "But –"

"I think we can handle a few Risen," Kjelle said.

"It's not just a few," Lucina said. "It's… hundreds. Maybe thousands. And they are led by Grima."

Nah wiped her brow. "Grima is coming?!"

"They're a ways off." Another sniff confirmed this estimate. "A few miles. Far enough that we can outrun it if it get a head start. But we have to go now."

Gerome had already vanished into the house and was rousing the others. Owain's hand had stopped twitching over his weapon.

They were leaving before Yarne had even had a chance to process the dreadful scent of the approaching army, to pick out the smell of Grima. The children of the Shepherds marched towards the distant silhouette of the gate on the horizon. Nah was limping, and Brady tried desperately to keep pace with Cynthia's pegasus in order to heal Noire. They weren't ready to leave – that much was readily apparent. But they weren't ready to get torn to pieces by Grima's army, either. Everybody was present; that would have to be enough.

The scent of the approaching Risen grew more and more overpowering as they walked, and Yarne began to dread that they would not make it in time. He kept throwing glances at Lucina. His sister always knew what to do in situations like this, always knew how to handle it. The only thing he got from her was a straight-ahead stare and an increasingly determined expression. It made him nervous.

Everything made him nervous.

"So we're really doing this," he said.

"Yes," she said. "It's our best chance."

"Not the Awakening?" he said. "Not that I don't like your idea. Anything that means I don't have to run from an army of Risen. But we don't know this'll work. We've got a whole species to look after, Luce, we have to be careful with this."

"We have a whole future to look after, Yarne, and the lives of our friends," Lucina said. "The Awakening would put all of us in harm's way. If we can spare all of our allies, and change our world for the better…" She smoothed down her errant ears, so that they both lay flat and dignified across her back. "We can't let this opportunity pass. It could save many people."

"And the taguel," Yarne added.

Lucina sighed. "Yes. And the taguel."

By now they had reached the gate. It towered over them, larger than Yarne could believe, or at least could have believed, before he'd seen the sheer size of Grima itself. A swirling violet pool took up the space between its massive pillars, which rippled like a still pond in a breeze. A gift from Naga, to change their fate.

He gulped. It was very intimidating. For a moment, Yarne wondered if Naga had been entirely right about this ominous fixture of the landscape; perhaps it would not send them into the past, and would rather disintegrate them. The whole thing was very foreboding, in an extinction sort of way.

He blinked. "Are you sure about this, Luce?"

"As sure as I can be." The phrase was hesitant – not a declaration that she was more sure than she had ever been, but rather a confession that she was sure as she could be, with such an insane plan. She breathed deeply again, and turned, her face going cold as stone. She had smelled something. "They're coming."

Yarne turned, and didn't need his nose to know she was right. A tsunami of Risen was charging at them from the glowing horizon from which they had come. All of their characteristic slowness was gone, replaced by an inhuman perseverance and speed; the Risen didn't get tired, and could move exactly as fast as they wished. They had only a few minutes before the whole of the army would be upon them.

Brady looked up from Noire's unconscious form, which was still draped over the pegasus's back. He was waving a staff over her in some kind of ritual that Yarne did not understand. "We aint' ready to go through," he said. "If we get split up in the vortex I ain't sure Noire will survive."

Lucina's ears flicked in indecision. "How long?"

"She's comin' 'round," Brady said. "A few minutes. You can't rush this stuff."

Laurent readjusted his glasses, and stepped forward from where he was standing next to Severa. "Given the relative velocity of the army, I'd estimate we have about a minute until they reach us."

"I'm sure our radiant Noire can come around before they reach us," Inigo said.

The rasp of many weapons coming free of their sheaths, and Gerome's annoyed sigh, met Yarne's ears. From the sound of it, everybody with a weapon to draw had drawn one. Nobody had even considered going through the gate without the whole group in tow.

Except Yarne, of course. He had been halfway to the gate, and had to forcibly halt his own movement and turn back around to face the oncoming storm. Leaving his friends simply wouldn't do, even if he wanted to.

For long seconds they stood, breathing hard, waiting for Noire to awaken or for the army to rush up the steps to the gate. Everybody's hearts were beating faster than a rabbit's, and Yarne knew exactly how fast a rabbit's heart beat.

A scream from behind him nearly made Yarne leap out of his skin.

"INSOLENCE! UNHAND ME OR DIE, MORTAL!"

Brady made a strangled noise. "Urk - please – stop – trachea—"

"Oh. H-hello, Brady. What –"

"The maiden has awoken," Owain said. "Quickly! We must make haste through the –"

"Let's _go_," Severa interrupted. "Instead of standing around here like a buncha nitwits." She placed her hand on the shoulder of the nearest person – which was Laurent – and unceremoniously gave him a shove in the direction of the gate. He stumbled and vanished into the purple pool without leaving a ripple. She beckoned the rest of them. "Come _on. _Gods."

She stepped through. Brady was helping Noire to her feet, supporting her on one shoulder. "The chance we'll get separated ain't too high, is it?"

"Laurent would be better equipped to answer that," Lucina said. "But since he is no longer here, I suppose you'll have to ask him when you get there." She tilted her head toward the pool. "Go on. I'll make sure everyone gets through."

Yarne danced from foot to foot, torn between bolting through the gate and staying with his sister. The latter impulse won out, and he remained standing next to her, rolling his beaststone between his fingers.

"I don't like this," he said.

Brady went next, with Noire on his shoulder.

They were followed by Cynthia, who turned to Lucina. "This is going to open a big glowing tear in space, right? That's what Laurent said?"

Lucina blinked. "I'm… not sure, Cynthia."

The pegasus knight grinned. "This is gonna be some entrance! I am Cynthia! Fall before m-"

With that, she tripped on the threshold and fell face-forward into the portal, barely managing to keep hold of her mount's reins as she vanished. Gerome flew Minerva through so fast that Yarne almost didn't catch his annoyed sigh. Nah went after him, and Kjelle rattled through as fast as her heavy armour would let her. Inigo threw Lucina a wink, and dropped his weight backwards through the portal as though falling into a lake.

"We shall meet again on the other side of the celestial ingress, good kinsmen," Owain said. He pointed his weapon up and in front of him, and declared, "Onward, sword hand!"

With that, he was gone, and the royal siblings were the only ones left on the threshold. Lucina looked at Yarne and smiled, taking a step back toward the gate. She was still holding Falchion out in front of her, as though ready to impale anything that charged at her. She was mere feet from the exit. "Ready, little brother?"

"Ready to get out of here," he started to say.

Suddenly, Lucina jolted backwards as though punched in the chest. It took both of them a long moment to realize what had happened. His sister blinked, seeming shocked, and then looked down to the arrow that was sticking out of her shoulder. All the blood drained from her face.

In slow motion, a vanguard of Risen began charging up the steps fifty feet away. Falchion fell from his sister's fingers, clattering to the stone gate's stone approach. Her balance slipped backwards, and within moments, she was engulfed in a shimmering purple curtain, and was gone. Her weapon still lay on the ground where she had been standing.

It took Yarne another tick of the clock to realize that he was the only one left in the present, and that he was about to get overrun by Risen.

"Lucina!" he shrieked, as though it would help. He was moving before he was aware of it, dropping low to recover Falchion as he stepped forward. Another arrow whistled over his head, vanishing into the portal, and he was through the gate after it, thinking only to get his sister back her weapon, with nary a consideration to his own wellbeing.

And then he was falling, falling, his family's sword clutched in his hand, his ears streaming out from behind him as he dropped, the roar of the Risen army giving way to his father's voice and the word, "_Lissa-!"_


	3. Yarne Practices His Football Tackle

In the few seconds before he hit the ground, Yarne had ample opportunity to consider how very doomed he was.

Although the possibility they might be split up had been mentioned, he had never realistically considered what he might do if he ended up in the past alone. He had figured he'd find someone to protect him, someone nice and strong with very heavy armor, until Lucina found him again. But that idea had hinged on the idea that Lucina would be able to do all the heavy lifting as far as changing the past was concerned; he'd be along to help her, of course, but the going back in time had had been his sister's idea in the first place, and he had just assumed that she would be doing all the work.

But now Yarne was challenged in that assumption on three basic fronts. The first was that none of his friends were anywhere in sight, least of all Lucina. The second was that he was holding Falchion, which meant that Lucina was not, and that he had no beaststone, leaving him unarmed apart from the sword. And the third was that, twenty feet beneath him and closing, were Chrom and Lissa in the flesh, and the latter was about to get eviscerated by an axe-wielding Risen.

Everything was also on fire, which did not help quell Yarne's inclination to flee for his life. But the Risen did not belong here, and should not have been here – they must have come through the portal with him. Which meant that Lissa was not supposed to die here, and if she did, it would turn the timeline on its head, and gods knew what would happen then. Owain certainly wouldn't be born. Maybe he and Lucina wouldn't be, either, if Lissa's existence had something to do with the continuation of Chrom's.

Terror rose up in his throat like bile. That meant saving Lissa – and running right into the path of the Risen's axe – was probably an act of self-preservation. Which meant he had to do it.

In order to save his own life, he had to walk right into a sharpened blade. Yarne was certain the gods were having a good chuckle at him.

Then his feet touched the ground, and he was running.

He didn't know how to use Falchion, but didn't have much time to think about it. What would Lucina have done? Leapt in front of the sword, no doubt, blocked it expertly with her own blade, eviscerated the Risen with a flick of her wrist – yes. That was what his sister would have done. That was what he would do. Prince Yarne would save his aunt with his family's ancestral blade. He was yards away from reaching the creature, and felt his grip tighten around the weapon's hilt, felt his whole body go stiff with preparation. This was it.

Yarne tackled the Risen.

He threw his entire weight ungracefully against the enemy, wrapping his arms around its chest and trying to wrench it off its feet. The impact of his strike knocked the creature into the dirt. Its axe clattered from its hand and landed a few feet away, leaving the creature unarmed and pinned beneath the taguel's lean form.

And then it was over – his opponent was neutralized, and Yarne knelt, victorious, on its chest. And he hadn't even had to use the sword.

Shocked by his own success, Yarne couldn't help but grin. He squared his shoulders back and beamed down at his felled foe, which was snarling at him with its arms trapped beneath his knees. "Ha," he cackled, and gave the Risen a flick on the nose. "Don't mess with a bunny's aunt."

It grunted and snapped its jaws at him, managing to catch his fingers between its front teeth and biting down hard. Yarne's arrogance vanished in a moment as pain shot up his arm, and he yelped, swatting uselessly at the Risen with his other hand to get it to relinquish his fingers. He tried to tug his trapped appendages out from between the Risen's jaws, to no avail. It didn't occur to him that he had dropped Falchion somewhere between landing and getting eaten by a Risen.

At length, he had the idea to look up. His father and aunt were staring at him in abject confusion, obviously uncertain what to make of this entire occurrence.

Yarne made eye contact with Chrom, and, noting the glowing sword he held, said, "Help?"

"Right," Chrom said, but very slowly. He approached cautiously and, giving Yarne a disbelieving look, drove Falchion's point into the creature's skull. The light faded from its eyes, and its grip on Yarne's hand relaxed.

The taguel leapt to his feet, shaking his hand out as though it would alleviate the ache. "Ow, ow," he whimpered. "That's going to get infected. Aww, that'd be an embarrassing way to die…"

Only now did he realize he no longer held his sister's sword. He located it lying near the base of a tree, and scrambled towards it. He scooped it off the ground with his uninjured hand, checked the blade for nicks he knew could not be there, and straightened his shoulders, trying to show off what little dignity he still had after his ungraceful display.

Chrom and Lissa were still staring at him.

"Um," Lissa said.

"Quite the… entrance," Chrom said. "What…" He cleared his throat. "Who are you?"

"I'm…" Don't say Yarne, he told himself. Lucina had said that they needed to be careful about changing the past more than they needed too – one push in the wrong direction and they could make everything worse. He hadn't been prepared to give a pseudonym. His brain cycled through possible monikers – his friend's parents, his friends themselves, but he couldn't find the courage to take any of their names. He ended up staring blankly ahead. "Call me…"

Chrom was staring at him expectantly. He opened his mouth, willing to accept the first thing that came out. But his brain was caught in indecision. Virion? Stahl? Vaike? Chrom knew all those people, or would soon, and would be suspicious if he came out and said he was Kellam or something. Inigo, then, maybe? Or Gerome? It felt too strange to steal his friends's identities.

What came out was, "Vir…sta…vai…ini…ger."

Chrom twitched his head as though he had just seen some bizarre hallucination, and rapidly opened and shut his eyes a few times. Yarne couldn't shake the impression that his father was trying to blink him out of existence. "Hunh?"

Yarne grimaced. "Virstavaiiniger. It's, er, foreign. You know what, don't worry about it. I'm just glad I was here."

That was a lie; Yarne was absolutely _not _glad to be there. His hand hurt, he was alone, he had no beaststone, and he wasn't sure he could remember his history lessons well enough to prevent the terrible future. But he knew he had to leave before he screwed anything up. He had to find Lucina and give her Falchion, and get a weapon he could use. But where could she be?

A voice interrupted his thoughts. "Milord! Milady! Are you hurt?"

Yarne knew the voice. When his father and aunt turned to face the approaching knight, he slipped backwards into the trees.

Lissa's voice. "Frederick! Robin!"

Another speaker, this one a female voice, one that he remembered only vaguely from his childhood, belonging to a family friend. A distant memory, like all of the Shepherds. "Are such horrific creatures commonplace in these lands?"

"They're not from Ylisse, I can promise you that," his father said. The voices were drawing further and further away, but Yarne's ears could still pick them up.

"No one is injured, then? Thank the gods…"

"Thank the guy who saved me," Lissa said. "If it wasn't for him, I'd be in worse shape than his fingers." He could hear her turn. "Wait, where'd he—"

Yarne dropped over a felled log, and the voices became barely-audible murmurs. He wanted nothing more than to stick with them, and to be behind the protective point of his father's sword once more, but he had a sister to save. Lucina wouldn't last long without a weapon, not with an arrow in her shoulder. For once, he would have to ignore his own instinct to bolt to his own rescue.

He didn't know where or when she would have appeared. It could be years until she arrived, for all he knew, and the thought forced prickling pinpoints of dread all over his scalp. But assuming she was here – and assuming she was now – she would be trying her hardest to find their father, and to get the timeline off track. And if she was capable of moving around – which Yarne hoped beyond hope that she was – she knew as well as he did that the Shepherd's next stop would be Regna Ferox, to gather allies.

Yarne didn't know what he would do in Regna Ferox, but he supposed that was his next stop.

But first, antibiotics.


	4. Lucina is Accidentally Moby-Dick

No Risen followed Lucina through her portal, but neither did Yarne, or anybody else. It took her a moment to realize the Outrealm gate had transported her some fifteen feet over the ground, and despite the terrible pain from her arrow wound, she managed to right herself in preparation to land on her feet.

She hit the ground too hard and could not keep her balance. Her boots found no support in the shifting sand beneath them, and she dropped to her knees. When she stopped her fall by throwing her hands out in front of her, her left arm partially collapsed, sending white-hot shocks up through the injury in her shoulder. For a moment the pain was so intense that the world went gray at the edges, but she fought through it. She told herself that she'd had worse than an arrow in the chest.

After a moment of regaining herself, she straightened her back with a grimace, trying to get a sense of her surroundings. Everything around her was sand and dust, stretching to the horizon. Rocky outcrops sprung up here and there, and at intervals were ruined walls. Nearby was a packed-dirt road, unoccupied, slithering between the rocks and ruins that dotted the landscape. The sun beat down so intensely that she could feel its heat through the fur on her ears.

"Plegia," she muttered, as the realization struck her. "I'm in Plegia."

That wasn't good. That was, in fact, the opposite of good. She didn't know the date she had landed, but if it was when she'd wanted to be, Ylisse and Plegia were probably embroiled in a long, bloody war – or were about to be. She doubted she would be received well by most of the people here. She spoke like an Ylissean, and besides, she carried the treasured weapon of the Ylissean royal house-

Wait. Where was Falchion?

She turned quickly, patting in the sand around her with her good arm, feeling for the weapon. Finding nothing, she leapt to her feet, took a moment to wince, and scanned the ground for the familiar glint of steel, or the sword's buried grip. All she saw was the faint flash of something purple, half-concealed by sand.

Lucina couldn't recall, offhand, any point at which her sword had been purple, but finding that she had no other options, bent to take the object from the ground. From the ease with which she picked it up, it most definitely was not a sword. Rather, it was a smooth, round stone, which glimmered like crystal, its interior swimming opaque purple. It sat perfectly in her palm.

"You lost, girl?"

Lucina closed her fingers around the beaststone. On her belt was a mask she had borrowed from Gerome, which she pulled on before turning. If this stranger was a Plegian loyalist, it wouldn't do to go staring him down with the mark of the Exalt.

The man had stood from behind a wall, and was approaching her. He had a square face, bisected by a diagonal scar. His hair had perhaps been red, once, but now it was a grizzled color that reminded Lucina of moldy strawberries. He was dressed in all leather and carried a lance.

There were two men with him, both younger than he, and both wielding worn-looking swords. Lucina didn't know how she hadn't heard them approach. Perhaps they had been behind the wall the whole time, waiting for their moment to show themselves. Still, she should have been able to hear their hearts, or breathing. She hadn't smelled them, either. Perhaps there was something special about the armor they wore.

The man's squinting eyes went from the empty sheath at her hip to the arrow in her shoulder without changing expression. Once they found her ears, however, Lucina saw his mouth turn, ever-so-slightly, into a smirk.

Bandits, no doubt. She tried not to show how much her shoulder hurt. Such people were quick to prey on the weak and injured. But she didn't know how long she could last with an arrow in her shoulder, and needed to find civilization. She needed directions, and could not turn them away.

She wished she had a sword. "I've gotten turned around," she said. "I would be very grateful if you could help set me back on track."

The man shifted something on his belt. He tried to make the movement look nonchalant, but Lucina had been in enough fights to know when something was suspicious. She tensed, yet the man dropped his hand back to his side as though nothing had happened.

"Of course," he said. Something about his expression made her nose twitch. "Send you to your warren, and all that. We been looking for you, after all."

The scent of carrots hit Lucina like something out of a dream. Carrots didn't grow in her future, where the soil was always scorched and rocky, and yet she knew she loved them, having eaten her body weight in the vegetables nearly every week growing up. Despite herself, she found her gaze drifting to the source of the scent, at a pouch on the man's belt – that must have been what he had reached for. It took a second for her to realize how strange the man's last words had been.

"Looking for me?" she said. "But that's –"

The man's two companions were approaching her. To flank her, she realized, and took a step back. The man grinned.

"Oh, yeah. We been tracking a taguel in these parts for a long while now." He waved his lance lazily in her direction. "Gotta say, I hunted a lot of your kind in my day, but you are a tough nut to catch. You'd almost think there were none of you left."

Lucina hoped that she hadn't accidentally ended up so far back in the past that the taguel were still being kept as Plegian pets. But the man had said that he thought there were none of them left – and Lucina's mother had once said that she had spent a lot of time in hiding in Plegia. So the taguel these men were hunting must have been Panne herself, and Lucina had blundered right into their path.

She took another step backwards, but stopped when she realized there was something jabbing into her back.

The voice was nearly right in her ear. "We got you now, coney."

Another man, wearing the same sound-muffling armor as the rest of them, had crept up behind her while she was still attempting to decipher what was happening. No running, then.

She scrutinized the old hunter. The lance he held was no doubt a beast-killer weapon, so confronting him in rabbit form was unwise. But the other men were carrying swords – she should be able to deal with them with very little problem. Perhaps -

"You're a taguel hunter," she said, hoping to buy time. It wasn't a hard conclusion to reach –he even had bait in a pouch on his belt.

"You should know," the man said. "You were there when I killed your whole warren. Or, nearly. All of 'em but you. I'm not one for unfinished business, though. And I'm needing more taguel fur for my coat. It's getting hard to find, nowadays."

Lucina blinked. Getting turned into a coat would seriously harm her efforts to save the world.

He tightened one of the leather gauntlets he wore and continued speaking. "I ain't one much for speeches but I gotta commend you. Two decades is a long time to lead a guy on a hunt."

"That's despicable," Lucina exclaimed. "You've been hunting the same person for twenty years?"

"The same animal, you mean."

"No," Lucina said. "I don't."

With that, and faster than any of them could react, she transformed, feeling her familiar humanoid form give way to her more nimble rabbit one. She dropped to her forepaws, intending to kick the man behind her in the chest, but her left arm gave up on her again. She nearly fell flat on her face, but compensated with her good leg and managed to stay up.

Realizing her stumble had wasted too much time, she turned her attempted attack into a roll, using her already-lowered left foreleg as a lead to dodge away from the man's attack. His sword came down, and missed her by inches.

Lucina came up facing him, and took advantage of the opening created by his unsuccessful swing. She sat up on her ankles and delivered a swift, fluffy punch to center of the man's face.

His head snapped backwards, and his free hand went up to stem the flow of blood from his busted nose. She took the opportunity to kick his sword arm. The force of the hit sent his weapon flying from his hand and twisted the fellow around, forcing him to turn to keep up with his own appendage.

Lucina was no longer concerned with the hunter. She blasted past him, bolting after the sword he had dropped. Slowed by her injured leg, but still faster than the humans, Lucina reached the sword long before her pursuers were in range. She shifted back into human form in the split second before she reached the weapon, and, seizing it from the ground, turned to face her opponents.

To her shock, they were hanging back, standing twenty or so feet away with their weapons drawn. She remained where she was, breathing hard, pointing her sword at them, waiting for the charge.

They did not move. The man with the lance grinned, his squint growing even fiercer as he did so.

"I didn't know the Ylisseans had coneys as royalty," he taunted. "Or maybe a royal pet?"

With a jolt, Lucina realized that, although she still had her mask, it did not fit her when she was shapeshifted; its strap was small enough that the costume piece had gotten pulled up around the base of her ears, rather than staying on her face. It had failed to conceal the mark of the exalt, which glowed noticeably in her beast form.

"Come no closer," she warned. In any other circumstance she would have charged the vile men, but she wasn't sure how much of a condition she was in to fight, given her arm. She needed to survive. She was here for a reason.

He scoffed. "Or what? It'll start a war? The war is as good as here, beast. Your threats are empty."

Good as here. So the war had not started yet. That meant that Lucina still had time to get to Ylisstol before the exalt fell. A few months, at the least.

She had not failed. There was still a chance.

Lucina took a step backwards, thinking only to make haste to her father as fast as she could. The hunter took it as indication that she meant to retreat. "Run, coney. It's been a long time since I had a good chase."

She hesitated. She could better deal with the men head-on, in combat, rather than having them attack from her rear. But the thought of getting to Ylisstol, of doing what she had come to do, was suddenly more pressing than the mortal danger in front of her.

She had parents to save. A world to save. A future to prevent. These men were simply distractions. She had to get to Ylisstol.

Lucina turned and ran.


	5. Yarne Practices Identity Theft

"Bandit. Halt. Come no closer."

Yarne had no idea what about him, exactly, appeared bandit-like. Perhaps it was the sticks stuck in his hair, or the mud all over his face, or the fact that he dragged his sword dejectedly behind him like it was a particularly unwieldy stick. Or maybe it was the fact that he was alone, and unarmored, and looked absolutely nothing like a bandit of any kind.

He managed to drag his gaze over the dirt path to the armored trio that stood not thirty feet away from him. They were dressed in plate, and looked well-kept. They were officials, then, probably, although _whose _officials was a matter of some confusion for Yarne. They were also the first living people Yarne had seen in a few days, and despite their pointy swords, he was happy to see them.

He'd dragged himself north, on foot, all the way from Ylisstol, without so much as an undigestible potato to sustain him. He had been walking for perhaps a week. Of course, now he had no idea where he was. In fact, he was only marginally certain that he'd been heading north at all. He hoped he wasn't in Rosanne or something. Although he wasn't sure how he'd have managed to cross the sea on foot, he was certain that if anybody could accidentally circumvent an ocean to get to a distant foreign country, it was him. Cynthia probably could have done it, too, although her method of locomotion would have been more akin to tripping.

"You guys got any water?" he asked, wearily.

One of the guards, a woman with a massive crossbow, shook her weapon at him. "I said halt!"

"Halting," Yarne said. He dropped falchion and showed his palms in a gesture of peace. "Currently halting."

She shook her crossbow again. "State your business."

"I'm, um." Yarne pointed at himself, then at them, then the sky. "Look, it's cool. I'm from the Ylissean royal court. See?" He pulled his right ear up from where it rested against his back and showed them the Mark of the Exalt, emblazoned in blue, on the fur of the ear-tip. "I'm looking for someone. A girl, little older than me, maybe? Ears like mine? Mark like this in her eye? Stripey pants, heroic demeanor? Hopefully… no longer has an arrow in her shoulder?" At another menacing twitch from the bow-woman, he released his ear and showed his palms again. "Ring a bell?"

The guards exchanged glances. "We've seen nobody matching that description."

Yarne nodded thoughtfully. "Right. Is this… Regna Ferox? Or am I someplace weird?"

"This is the border to Regna Ferox." The bow-woman spoke slowly.

"Oh. I expected it to be a little snowier. Good that it's not, of course, I hear frostbite's a real problem up here, and I wouldn't want to walk all the way up here just to lose a foot." He chuckled nervously. "Could I, ah, talk to the Khan, maybe?"

The bow-woman shook her head. "The Khan doesn't have time for bandits and random wanderers."

Yarne pointed over his shoulder without looking back. "I'm prince of Ylisse. Did I… mention that?"

Slowly, the guard's eyebrows crept up. "You're Prince Chrom."

"I –" Yarne ran his fingers through his thick hair. He wasn't Prince Chrom. But Lucina had to be in Regna Ferox somewhere, and if he could get in, and talk to the Khan – it didn't matter whether it was Basilio or Flavia, because he knew both of them personally – then perhaps he could get them to allocate resources to search for his sister. He could tell them what was at stake, and they would understand the grave nature of his request. And if they didn't understand…

They would have to understand.

He hoped his fake sarcasm sounded adequately convincing. "No, the other Prince of Ylisse. What other Prince is there?"

The guard on the right murmured something to his captain. Yarne's acute hearing picked it up. "I didn't know Prince Chrom had rabbit ears."

"Neither did I," the bow-woman said, pointedly glaring at him.

Yarne couldn't shake the terrible impression that they were plotting something. Perhaps they were going to arrest him and execute him for impersonating royalty. Or cook him for dinner. Or have him hunted for sport. But what he'd told them hadn't been a lie, per se. Maybe a bit of a lie. A teeny lie. But nothing that would justify killing him. Right?

Right?

"All right, Chrom," the captain said, skeptically. "Let's see what the West-Khan thinks we should do with you."

Yarne blinked, not having expected his ruse to work. He was still holding his hands up in surrender, and only now did he lower them slightly. Something in the back of his mind was telling him to bolt. "Wait, really?"

"Oh, yeah," the captain said. Her two soldiers were moving towards him. "He'll be interested in hearing what you have to say."

He didn't like how they were walking. He was probably being paranoid and frightened, but they reminded him of hunting wolves.

He stepped back, taking Falchion off the ground as he did so. "Nuh-uh, nuh-uh. You're not arresting and executing me. I'm the last of my kind. I can't afford to be executed."

"Very few people can, _Chrom_," the guard said.

Yarne shook his head. "You're gonna have to catch me first," he said, and turned and bolted into the nearby grassland. His legs and feet were more sore than death and felt like logs, but his hand went to his belt, knowing that soon his paws would bear him swiftly away from here, away from the danger of extinction, where he could regroup, and find Lucina on his own …

The beaststone wasn't there.

Of course it wasn't there. It hadn't been there for the past week, having been lost in the portal. Just as he realized this, one of his dead legs caught on a rotting log and he went tumbling face-first into the dirt. The rattling footsteps of his pursuers were on top of him immediately.

He threw his hands up in the air again, as far as they would go. He was still face-down in the mud.

"Okay, okay, okay," he said. "I yield, you win. Please don't stab me."


	6. Yarne Makes Bad Decisions

"He said he was Prince of Ylisse?"

"Yes, sir."

"And then he ran away and fell over."

"Yes, sir."

"And that's how you apprehended him?"

Basilio's voice was halfway between a chuckle and a scoff, and his tone was one of such incredulity that Yarne would have thought someone had just told him he'd be dead within the year.

"Yes, sir."

The West-Khan's grand hall was a great deal more rustic than the one Yarne had grown up with back in Ylisstol. It had fewer arches, less shining white marble, and yet the whole place had a stern, martial practicality about it that gave the impression that the man who held court here was not to be trifled with.

Basilio, of course, didn't need the help of his hall to be intimidating. Yarne hadn't seen the man since he was much younger, and he had forgotten how massive he was. Yarne had always thought that Basilio had seemed big because Yarne had been a child at the time, but even now, with the taguel grown to his full height and made of pure lean muscle, the West-Khan seemed an immovable stone wall of a man. The impression was helped by the fact that Yarne was handcuffed and surrounded by guards.

"I need your help," Yarne told him.

Basilio laughed, a strangely friendly sound. "A lot of people do. What I'm wondering is what's so important that you're willing to impersonate the crown prince of Ylisse to get an audience with me. I assume this is no petty land dispute?"

"I wasn't lying about being prince of Ylisse," Yarne said. "I'm just… a different prince of Ylisse."

"Sure," Basilio said. "Which one is that?"

"My name is Yarne," the taguel said. "I'm – look. I can't tell you. My sister said I can't tell you exactly what's happening. But something terrible is going to happen soon, in Ylisse, and in Regna Ferox, too. And it's gonna destroy the whole world."

Basilio raised his eyebrows, crossed his arms over his broad chest, and said nothing.

"Plegia's about to force a war with Ylisse, and if we don't do something, they'll kill the exalt and eventually it'll end up with the whole continent getting conquered and Grima getting summoned…"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Basilio held his palm up to get Yarne to stop talking. "That's kind of a massive slippery slope. What do you expect me to do, here? Send troops to Ylisse? I can't do that on the request of a random guy we found on the road."

"No. No," Yarne said. "I'm looking for someone. My sister. She's a taguel, like me, but she knows how to stop all this. I mean, I do, too, but she's the one who can actually _do _it." Of this, Yarne was completely certain. He was in the past to help Lucina save the world, but he couldn't do it himself. He was too much of a coward for that – a fact he had no problems whatsoever admitting to himself. "I think she's in Regna Ferox somewhere. She has to be. This was where she was going to come next."

To negotiate a military alliance, Yarne wanted to tell him, but decided to omit that piece of information. If he started spewing things about the future – that, in their world, Chrom had been defeated by Basilio's champion, and that the military alliance between Ylisse and Regna Ferox did not come until far too many lives had been lost in the war, ultimately dooming them against Valm, Validar, and Grima itself – then he would sound even crazier than he already did. "I need your help to find her."

Basilio laughed. "So you come to me saying the world's going to end, and you want help finding your sister?"

Yarne wanted to touch the back of his neck, but his cuffed hands prevented him from doing so. "When you put it that way, it sounds really dumb. But yeah. She can help stop it."

The West-Khan was silent for a long moment, nodding slowly to himself. At last, he said, "All right, Prince Yarne. Let's settle this the Feroxi way."

Yarne didn't like the sound of that. "The Feroxi way involves a lot of swords, doesn't it?"

Basilio grinned, beaming down at him with his white teeth, and nodded vigorously. "You defeat my champion, you've proven your royal blood and we'll help you find your sister. You lose, you leave. Deal?"

Yarne swallowed. He wasn't really in a place to decline. Of course, he desperately wanted to. Staying out of the arena and away from people with pointy swords was in his best interest. Wandering around the Feroxi countryside was preferable to that.

But he needed to find Lucina, and this was the only way to secure the Khan's help. Even if he couldn't negotiate a military alliance himself, if he could defeat Basilio's champion, he would then become his new champion. Then, Yarne could intentionally throw the match when Chrom arrived to fight for Flavia, thus allowing his father to negotiate the defensive pact. It would change the past for the better. Besides, he thought, it's what Lucina would do. His sister would have no problem putting herself in harm's way so that their father could succeed in reaching an agreement with Regna Ferox.

He tried to sound brave. "You're on," he said.

It wasn't long before Yarne was desperately regretting his decision.

Basilio allowed him a few days to recuperate from his long trek before pitting against Lon'qu in the arena. He was free to walk around the castle as he pleased, but every time he got too close to the gates, the guards would give him withering glances that forced him to turn around. Yarne was stuck, and knew he was in for a great deal of hurt.

The first day he lay in bed shivering, attempting to recuperate for his upcoming battle, but managing only to work himself up. The next day he spent hidden in a suit of armor, hoping that they would forget about him and not force him to fight, until a servant had found him and chased him off.

The third day found him out in the courtyard with a practice dummy. If he was going to fight, he might as well be prepared.

He hefted Falchion in his hands. He didn't even know if he was worthy to wield the blade. Lucina had always hogged it. Not that he minded, of course; being prince, he had been trained in the art of swordsmanship just as much as his sister, but had never been nearly as good at it. Their father's training sessions usually ended with Lucina chasing Yarne around the yard while Chrom shouted at him to use the proper blocking technique.

Now Yarne was left with a sword he didn't know how to use, which would probably turn dull as stone in his hands, and twenty-four hours until he had to face one of the most fearsome warriors known to Regna Ferox or the Shepherds.

Yarne let out a distressed moan and danced from foot to foot. He wasn't sure how to approach hitting the training dummy. He knew _how _to hit the training dummy, but he wasn't sure whether to go for the chest, or the arms, or the head. Dummies were much harder than actual opponents. They gave you no clues as to how to respond to them. They just sort of stood there on their sticks and waited to get hit.

"All right, Lon'qu," Yarne told the dummy. He leveled his sword at the straw man. "You messed with the wrong bunny."

A dark shadow ripped through the sky overhead, blotting out the sun for a moment, and an animal scream pierced the air. His rabbit instincts, honed by years of running from Grima, went into overdrive. Yarne dropped the sword and took cover under the practice dummy.

Only after his panic faded did Yarne realize that the scream and the shadow had not been that of the fell dragon, but of something much smaller – a wyvern.

A wyvern? Those weren't native to Regna Ferox. In fact, Yarne had never heard of an instance of a wyvern being in Regna Ferox at all, unless it was accompanying a rider. But the Feroxi didn't boast wyvern riders in their army, and the war with Plegia hadn't started yet…

Still frightened, but more cognizant, Yarne looked up. The wyvern had landed on one of the castle walls, and was glaring at the keep. It wore a saddle, but bore no jockey. Why was it here, then?

The guards in the courtyard shouted in alarm and scrambled for their bows and arrows. The wyvern, seeing them preparing to attack, let out another roar and took to the air, this time flying straight up and far out of the reach of their weapons. It quickly vanished into the low-hanging clouds, and was gone.

Yarne stood, scrutinizing the gathering snowclouds for some sign of the animal. In any other circumstance, he would have run inside and hidden until he was certain it was gone, but there was something about this particular wyvern. Something about its smell.

Minerva.

The realization hit Yarne like a charging knight. For a moment, his worry about the duel, his search for his sister, the impending doom of the world – all of it was lost in one, all-consuming question.

Where was Gerome?


	7. Lucina Learns She Needs An Extra Arm

Lucina was exhausted.

If she was going to give the hunters credit for anything - besides being horrible people, of course – it was persistence. She had been fleeing them constantly for over a week, unable to even stop long enough to purchase food. She'd had no time to allow her injury to heal, and the wound had become red, swollen, and hot to the touch. She was extraordinarily hungry, felt feverish and ill, and desperately needed to lie down and sleep for a day straight. But she had a world to save and a quartet of taguel hunters on her trail; she couldn't afford any of those things.

Lucina had been out of breath since she'd awoken from her not-so-restful sleep that morning. She'd taken a nap in a cave, having lost her hunters for the time being, and was skirting a hilly range of mountains as she moved north-east, hoping she could keep them off her trail by staying off of plains and deserts, where they could see much further. This had the benefit of keeping her away from her stalkers, but the problem of making movement much harder. She had to weave through trees and wade through underbrush, all while walking up what seemed to be a perpetual hill.

Despite herself, she stopped, pressing her back against a tree and attempting to catch her breath. The sun in Plegia seemed to beat down much brighter than it did in Ylisse, perhaps because of the nation's elevation. Its shining glare made her close her eyes for a moment, relying on her hearing and nose rather than her vision. She hadn't intended to keep her eyes shut for very long, knowing her exhaustion would make it hard to resist sleep even when standing, but the silence and clean air convinced her that it was safe to remain for a moment.

Lucina wasn't certain how long she leaned against the tree, but she was snapped out of her reverie by the crack of a breaking stick and the sudden, sharp scent of human.

She leapt into an alert posture, drawing her stolen sword from the sheath that it did not fit, searching for her pursuer. For a moment, she was convinced she had doomed herself by stopping, and had allowed her hunters to catch up with her. But her nose told her that it was only one person, not four. Once she got past the smell's distinct man-ness, she realized that it was much softer and earthier than a typical human scent – more like animal, or perhaps taguel, than hunter.

"Who goes?" she shouted. Her voice came out far weaker than she had hoped, but her tone was adequately intimidating.

For a long moment, there was no answer. Then, an enormous moving shadow seemed to materialize out of the forest itself. Lucina squinted at it, trying to determine what it was, and only managed to determine it was a massive flock of black birds a fraction of a second before they blasted past her in a whirlwind of feathers. She ineffectually threw her arms up to block her face, but the birds did not seem interested in hurting her. When they cleared, she was unscathed.

"More like who _crows_, nya ha," a voice said. "You lost?"

She turned again in the direction of the voice. From the place the crows had vanished had materialized a boy, with shock-white hair just like Laurent's, eyes just like Laurent's, and a goofy smile that was nothing like Laurent's whatsoever. There could be only one conclusion as to his identity.

"Henry," Lucina said, more out of shock than as a greeting. She hadn't expected to find the dark mage here, of all places. It was years yet until Father would encounter the boy – she had no idea what he was doing here. He was Plegian, she supposed, yet this seemed almost too serendipitous.

Henry's eyebrows jumped and his grin grew even bigger. "Whoa. And here I thought I was the one who was supposed to have _mysterious _ entrances. I don't know you, I think, though I was trying that mind hex out the other day…" He scratched his head, as though trying to remember whether or not he'd accidentally cursed himself. "I don't know you, right?"

"No, you… not yet. You don't know me."

"Not _yet_. Ooh." He beamed. "A mysterious lady from my future. Or a mysterious bunny from my future, maybe?"

Lucina's week of fleeing from the hunters had her brain-addled enough that this statement confused her. "Er… bunny?"

"Yeah. I've had my share of fluffy animals in my life, I think I know one when I see one." He pointed at his own ears, raised his eyebrows to show he was impressed. "Nice ears. Wish I had 'em."

A week of running from people who wanted her pelt had made Lucina very paranoid. "You may not have my ears."

"Aw, and here I was hoping I could hack 'em off you, nya ha! Oh, well. Can I pet 'em, though?"

"Pet my…" Lucina stepped back. She was in no mood to deal with this boy's strangeness.

Her protest was interrupted by Henry, who abruptly closed the distance between them, seized one of her ears, and began to stroke it. "Ooh, so soft. Do you use conditioner?"

She stepped back and swatted his hand away. "Stop. I have no time for this nonsense."

"Aww, come on," Henry said, dismissively. "You've got time for a little bit of ear-petting, even with a bunch of nasty guys on your tail, right?"

Lucina blinked at him. "How…"

Henry shrugged. "A little bird told me. Or a lot of birds. Anyway, it's not like they're going to pop out of the trees at any moment. You put a good few miles between you and them. With a little help from me, of course."

"You were helping me?"

"Yeah! You didn't notice because you were running, which is fine. But people tend to pause for a bit when one of their friends disappears into a fine mist of blood, nya ha ha. I'm sorry you _mist _it." With that, he burst into a cascade of maniacal laughter, as though this were the funniest thing he'd ever said.

Lucina felt her demeanor grow softer. She remembered Henry fuzzily but fondly, having thought him an oddly kind person for how bizarre he was. In retrospect, she wondered if the man's friendliness had to do with her being taguel, or being the daughter of one of his comrades, or one of his son's best friends. All three, perhaps. But here, where he did not know her identity, his assistance totally lacked an explanation. "Why?"

"Well, I don't like people who kill animals," Henry said. "And you're kind of an animal. You're kind of a human, too, but it was the animal part that I was misting hunters for." He giggled again at the recollection. "Besides, the mark in your eye gave me _paws, _nya ha. Not often you see Ylissean royalty running around out here, especially on the brink of a war."

"You know about the war?"

"Everyone knows about the war. Bloodshed and chaos, a _caw_cophony of pain and screaming! Yup. I've been stockpiling snacks."

Lucina grimaced, partially from the pain in her shoulder, partially from the wrongness of this assertion. It was only at this point did Henry seem to notice her injury.

"Say, that looks pretty bad. You want something for that?"

She blinked at him. "You want to heal me?"

"Sure. I'll curse it back to health for you! Maybe it'll mutate and explode when I do!"

"Um," Lucina said. "Please don't do that."

Henry sighed. "You sure? Maybe it'll grow into an extra arm. Those are always _handy_."

"N… no. No tentacles. Just… salves, please."

The mage seemed disappointed. "Well, all right. Who knows? Maybe it'll grow into an extra arm on its own. Nya ha!"

Lucina decided not to acknowledge this. "What about the hunters?"

He grinned. "I'll curse them back to health, too. Except I'll make sure _they_ mutate and explode!" He pointed his two first fingers at her as though holding the trigger to a crossbow. "Kersploosh!"

Lucina wasn't sure what it was about Henry. The boy was insane, and unsettling. He had a creepy laugh, and talked about blood too much. Yet she somehow felt at ease around him, safe, as though she were in the company of an eccentric uncle.

Before they had even reached his 'home', which was actually more of a temporary hideout in a cave, she had already told him what she could about her quest, why she was there, and what she was trying to prevent. Within reason, of course – she'd told him to call her 'Marth', which had been the first name she'd come up with off the top of her head, and had avoided mentioning that she was actually from the future, but everything else was fair game. Henry was no Plegian spy; she knew that much. The boy would eventually become a Shepherd and a trusted member of Chrom's circle of friends. Lucina would someday be friends with his son. It was difficult not to trust Henry.

"Whoa, whoa, they're trying to execute the _exalt?_" The dark mage giggled as he helped bandage her shoulder wound. "Ooh, that's juicy."

Lucina frowned. "That's… not the word I'd use."

"Yeah, but I think you're right," Henry said. He taped the bandage and leaned back to examine his handiwork. "Exalt dies, Plegia wins. Peace talks. Treaties." He shook his head, seeming uncharacteristically solemn at this thought. "No good."

Lucina glared at him suspiciously, beginning to regret having told him anything. "You _want _them to kill the exalt?"

"Me? Nah. Long wars are more fun, anyway." Henry frowned. "I mean, maybe it'll be longer if the exalt gets assassinated, but then it'll be all starvation. No explosions! No screaming! A tragic waste of a good war, if you ask me, nya ha ha!"

Lucina suddenly remembered a tale that her mother had told, long ago. Panne had been taking shelter in Plegia, hiding from hunters, when she had encountered a dark mage. The boy – Henry, Lucina knew – had told Panne that he knew of a plot to assassinate the exalt, and Panne, knowing the taguel held a centuries-long debt to the Ylissean exalt, had made haste to save her, only to arrive moments too late. It had been how her mother and father had met. Lucina had no doubt that Henry would soon learn of the plot to kill the exalt on his own, but maybe her telling him here would allow Panne to arrive at the exalt's side that much sooner. Her slip of the tongue might help save the future.

Henry handed her a small container that contained a salve for the treatment of infections. Then, reaching behind him, he grabbed a small sack. Lucina had thought she'd smelled carrots when she'd come in, but now that she'd located them visually, she began to salivate.

"You like carrots?"

"I – yes, very much," Lucina said. Only now did she realize how hungry she was. She hadn't eaten for a week.

"Tuber-rific," Henry exclaimed gleefully. "Here you go, then. I was saving these for this other bunny lady I've seen in these parts, but I figure you probably need 'em worse. Unless you wanna go walking out in the desert, wasting away slowly. Maybe you'll gnaw off your own leg!"

Lucina blinked. She hadn't considered that her arrival may have interrupted Henry's encounter with Panne. Perhaps it hadn't, but regardless, Panne would be more inclined to listen to this boy if he had carrots. And if she didn't listen, then her mother and father would never meet…

"Listen, Henry," Lucina said. "Save those carrots. If you can, find the other taguel, and tell her what I just told you, and give her those. It will…" Save the world, she wanted to say, but she knew that would not be enticing to Henry. "Save the exalt."

"And prolong the war," the mage said, gleefully. "I'm in. You sure you don't want any food?"

Lucina desperately wanted food. But she had a world to save.

"No," she said. "I must make haste to Ylisstol."


	8. Yarne Learns to Fly

Only now, with the life of a friend possibly at stake, did Yarne grasp that the guards had never actually told him he couldn't leave. In fact, this realization did not strike him until he was through the gates and sprinting down the road in the direction Minerva had flown, searching the sky for some sign of her. He'd had the insane and perhaps self-centered notion that the wyvern had appeared solely to catch his attention, and was trying to lead him to her master. Perhaps he was injured, or dying, or…

There were a number of horrible situations Gerome could be in, and Yarne's possible forfeiture of his duel – even if that same duel could save the world – was the last thing on his mind.

He ran for perhaps a quarter of a mile before the absurdity of his actions dawned on him. Only at length did he slow to a stop. His gaze twitched over the empty road and grey sky for any sign of the beast, finding nothing.

Of course. How stupid of him.

For a long while Yarne stood, breathing hard, his breath crystallizing in the cold air, heart sinking. Why would Minerva have come for him? If anything, she was coming for Lon'qu, who she no doubt considered family, just as much as Gerome or Cherche herself. He wasn't sure the wyvern even had the mental ability track him down, no less think to find him if her master was in trouble.

He sighed and turned back around, wondering if the guards would let him back in, or if his sudden rush from the castle had just doomed his sister and the future, as well. Stupid, stupid me, he thought.

Immediately, he was halted by an enormous black shadow which dropped from the clouds like a meteor. It landed in front of him with an enormous thump and a scream, spreading its wings wide as though preparing to grab him.

Yarne yelped and instinctively guarded his head with his hands. It would be ironic to die at the hands of one of the creatures which had helped save his life so many times.

"G-good wyvern," he squeaked, hoping to pacify her. "Good… terrifying beast. Don't… eat me."

At the sound of his voice, Minerva dropped to all four limbs and stepped toward him. Now she was making a soft clicking noise that Yarne hoped was friendly, but he wasn't sure.

Breathing hard, and trying to still the thump of his heart in his chest, Yarne slowly removed his hands from his head and looked at the animal. She was tilting her head at him as though trying to tell him something. Problematically, he had no idea what it was.

"H-hey, girl," Yarne said, unconvincingly. "W-where's Gerome?"

Minerva snarled and tossed her head like an annoyed horse. Yarne stepped away from her, but she made no move to attack. Instead, she lowered her head, baring her saddle at him as though indicating he board.

He cleared his throat. What was she thinking? He didn't know how to ride a wyvern. "I, ah, don't think so."

She opened her jaws, baring her teeth at him, and roared so loud that Yarne nearly dropped to the ground and covered his head again. Obviously, this wasn't an option.

"Okay okay okay." When he stepped towards her, he was shaking so badly that his legs almost refused to hold him. "Okay. Fine. You're the boss, Minerva."

The wyvern made a pleased clicking noise. Uncertainly, Yarne clambered onto her back, took hold of the reins, and…

Yarne was immediately shuttled into the air at such incredible speed that his ears snapped out behind him like flags. He nearly fell backwards from the saddle, but his self-preservation instinct dictated that he hold for dear life.

Minerva touched down less than a minute later, a mile or so off the road, but the taguel had been holding on so tightly that he was already stiff and sore when he climbed off.

It took him a moment to figure out why Minerva had flown him so far out here, for it was not immediately visible. Then, a pained moan snapped Yarne's attention to a hollow at the base of a tree, and he shouted out in concern and alarm.

"Gerome!"

The wyvern rider's black clothing made him difficult to spot in the shadow of the tree. His near-invisibility wasn't helped by the mask which he was still wearing for some reason, despite the fact that he was obviously gravely wounded.

Gerome made another noise, but this one sounded more like an annoyed groan than one of pain.

Yarne made haste to his friend and knelt by his side. It was hard to tell through the black armor, but it looked like Gerome had been shot, and was bleeding badly. An arrow, stained with blood to halfway up the shaft, was lying on the ground next to him, presumably having been ripped out.

"Aww no," Yarne said. "What are you doing all the way out here, Ger?"

Gerome made a pained expression and said something unintelligible. He seemed to be struggling to speak.

"Wh-what?" Yarne stammered. "What did you –"

Gerome seized him by the front of his shirt and pulled him downwards so Yarne could hear better. He was surprisingly strong for someone who was dying. "Don't. Call me. Ger."

Then, seeming exhausted, he grunted again and let his arm drop.

"S-sorry," Yarne said. "What…what happened?"

The wyvern rider grimaced, and, speaking haltingly, explained why he was there. "Raiders. Wanted… Minerva. Shot… in chest." He took a second to close his eyes and lean his head back against the tree. This brief sentence had taken it out of him. "Fell. Can't… walk."

"We gotta get you to a healer. We could get you on Minerva…"

"Can't," Gerome sounded irritated. "Fly. Either."

Yarne had seen firsthand the dangers of riding Minerva. Of course his friend was right.

Yarne bounced nervously on the balls of his feet, making a long, high-pitched, distressed noise as he considered. "Minerva could grab you, and carry you…"

"With her… teeth?" Gerome shook his head. "Or… talons? Probably… cause more damage."

There was only one option left, then. "I - I'm going to pick you up. Ready?"

"No," Gerome grunted.

Yarne didn't heed him. Grabbing his friend from under the arms, the taguel hoisted upwards with all his strength. Gerome, however, was total dead weight, and Yarne, after dragging him a few feet, was forced drop him. The wyvern rider snarled with pain and annoyance as Yarne let him fall unceremoniously to the dirt. Without better leverage or a second person, Yarne wouldn't be able to get far.

"Leave… me," Gerome said. "Doesn't… matter."

"Are you insane?" Yarne squeaked. "Actually don't answer that. Arena Ferox is less than two miles away, we could…"

Gerome grunted and shook his head. "Not… Arena Ferox."

"What?" Yarne said, incredulous. "What do you have against Arena Ferox? It's a perfectly…"

"Lon…qu."

"So you'd rather die than see your dad? Yeesh. It's probably a good thing you're not the last of _your _species…" At once, a glint of purple from Gerome's belt caught his attention. It completely derailed his thought process for a moment. "Hold on. Is that a beaststone?"

His friend grunted in nonverbal affirmation, and added, "Lucina's. Left it… when she went to find you. Meant to… give it back."

"That'll make it way easier not to die," Yarne said, excitedly. "Could I have that maybe?"

Even through the mask, Yarne could see Gerome roll his eyes. "Be my… guest."

Yarne took the stone off his friend's belt and turned it over in his palm. The scarce sunlight, scattered by the grey clouds, glinted off some incandescent current in the center of the gem. It gave him an idea.

"So you can't ride Minerva," Yarne said. "But you can ride me."

Gerome snorted with laughter, then winced with pain.

"Not like that," Yarne said, hurt. "Look, I'm a lot stronger in beast form. And I'll walk slow so you don't fall. But it's the only way I'm getting you back to someone who can help you."

"Dead anyway," Gerome said. His eyes were closed, and he spoke faintly.

"Nobody's going extinct on my watch," Yarne said. He could see Gerome's consciousness starting to fade. He knew the best way not to die was to desperately not want to die – that, and to stay out of harm's way and have plenty of antibiotics, but not wanting to die was a helpful addition. He searched for something encouraging to say, hoping he could inspire a will to live in his friend. "Besides, you've got to get Minerva back to her kind, right? She's not going extinct, either."

Gerome grunted. "No hope," he said, faintly.

Yarne would never have called himself a pessimist. If anything, his hope that he could somehow evade death itself made him an optimist. Gerome, on the other hand, lived as a pessimist, and if Yarne didn't act soon, he would die one, too.

Yarne turned the beaststone over in his hand again, and, not waiting for an answer from Gerome, dropped into his rabbit shape. With a little help from Minerva, who nudged and pushed her master's limp form, he managed to get Gerome slung over his back. Then, moving at a cautious trot, he made haste back to Arena Ferox.

The guards regarded him with intense alarm until he shifted back into his human shape. He staggered under the sudden weight of Gerome, but managed not to drop him.

"Hey," he called. "A little help?"

Recognizing him now, the guards let him back into the yard. One of them, seeing what he carried, ran to fetch a healer, and before long Gerome had a nice, cozy bed in the hospital wing. It was only when Minerva reappeared that they started asking questions.

The Feroxi seemed more confused than anything, not wishing to deny medical care to someone who was obviously in such mortal danger. They had originally not been intending to let Yarne reenter, they said, until they saw he had left to rescue an endangered traveller – and when Yarne told them, not entirely untruthfully, that the traveller's father was Feroxi, they thanked him profusely.

Gerome was out cold for the rest of the day – sleeping, the healer had said – but his nervousness about his friend's wellbeing kept Yarne from getting any training done. He wished he could speak to Gerome, perhaps get some advice, since he was less than twenty-four hours away from dueling the man's father.

There was, perhaps, one ray of hope in all of this. Yarne had a beaststone, now. He wasn't going to have to fight with an unfamiliar weapon.

No, he was just going to have to face Lon'qu with his bare paws, and win.

Yarne was doomed.


End file.
